To stop the spread of the Coronavirus, people must avoid infection risk. Given widespread skepticism regarding information concerning the Coronavirus received from authorities, one potentially important pathway to estimate the infectiousness of one’s group members could be through gossip (i.e., information about an absent target). Infection risk is reflected by both infection status and adherence to social distancing norms. In hypothetical scenarios (N = 837), participants received gossip that we manipulated to describe a group member’s infection status and/or norm adherence. Results showed people tended to believe gossip and that gossip influenced behavioral intentions to avoid and punish targets of gossip as well as the perception of targets. We conclude that gossip, while potentially unreliable, could affect how people treat group members. We discuss how gossip could alleviate the Coronavirus crisis by contributing to slowing the Coronavirus’s spread, as well as exacerbate it through increased social exclusion based on unverified information.

为了阻止冠状病毒的传播，人们必须避免感染风险。鉴于对从当局收到的有关冠状病毒的信息普遍持怀疑态度，估计一个人的团体成员传染性的一种潜在重要途径可能是通过八卦（即有关缺失目标的信息）。感染风险通过感染状态和对社会疏远规范的遵守情况反映出来。在假设场景中（N= 837），参与者收到八卦，我们操纵这些八卦来描述组成员的感染状态和/或规范遵守情况。结果表明，人们倾向于相信八卦，八卦影响了回避和惩罚八卦目标的行为意图以及对目标的看法。我们得出结论，八卦虽然可能不可靠，但可能会影响人们对待团体成员的方式。我们讨论八卦如何通过减缓冠状病毒的传播来缓解冠状病毒危机，以及通过基于未经证实的信息增加社会排斥来加剧这种危机。